


I like how it makes me feel

by amberlazuli



Category: HELIOS Rising Heroes (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Friends With Benefits, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 12:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25970065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberlazuli/pseuds/amberlazuli
Summary: “My girlfriend broke up with me.”“Which number was this, again?  Seven?” Billy wonders aloud, one hand skimming lightly down Faith’s back.“It’s your fault.”
Relationships: Faith Beams/Billy Wise
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	I like how it makes me feel

His fingers are twitching. 

That’s a positive sign, likely, since it means he’s so utterly overstimulated that his muscles have started to jerk involuntarily, and he grips uselessly at the air, chest heaving with shallow breaths. 

“Ah, that was good.”

His partner’s voice is entirely too unaffected, silky smooth the way it always is regardless of what he happens to be doing. It’s unfair, considering what they _did_ just do, and there’s about ten seconds of blissful silence before the other man is moving. 

“Leaving so soon?” he keeps his tone light, already knowing the answer. 

“It’s early enough that I can head to the club for a bit. One of my girlfriends wants to meet up anyway,” is the reply he gets, and he can feel the mattress move as the bed suddenly gets a lot colder. 

“Mm, kay,” he yawns through the words. 

“Hey, don’t fall asleep. I dunno if Ochibi-chan’s out on patrol or what, but you won’t wanna deal with his shrieking if he walks in on you in my bed.”

“I’ll leave in a few minutes, I promise~,” he coats the words with as much sugar as possible and it seems to be enough, since the other man departs after throwing some clothes on. 

—

He doesn’t leave. 

He means to, honestly, since he doesn’t want to cause trouble, but he’d gotten exactly zero hours of sleep the night before because he’d been up gathering intel for a client. 

It’s hardly the first time that’s happened, and he’d still managed to complete all of his normal daily duties without anyone remarking on his sleep-deprived stage—admittedly, the goggles help—but now that he’s lying in a soft bed the pull of sleep is too strong to resist and he passes out before he can even attempt to get up. 

Faith’s roommate does come in at some point, but by all accounts the two of them have some pact where they talk to each other as little as possible so chances are if he even noticed someone was in the bed, he wouldn’t have thought too hard on it before going to sleep in his own. 

That’s for the best, since by this point he’s preeeeetty sure he’s not making the trek back to his own room before morning. 

He grabs his phone to check the time—2:30 AM—and scrolls through the EliChan for a bit to see if anything earth-shattering has happened in the past three hours. 

It looks quiet, though from the hour he’s guessing that the last of the clubs should be winding down and he might as well just stay up until Faith gets back. 

The other man won’t make a fuss with his roommate present, so there’s no real harm in it. 

He’s half-dozing when the door creaks open, the scent of alcohol and cigarette smoke wafting into the room even before Faith does. 

“Hey.”

“Hey. I told you to leave,” Faith’s voice is a raspy growl and Billy wonders what that means for half a second before Faith’s stripping his clothes off and diving under the covers. 

“Yep, you sure did!” Billy affirms, turning over and letting Faith bury his face in Billy’s neck. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” is the grunted response, which normally would inspire Billy to do a quick bit of research and figure it out for himself, but for some reason...he actually wants to hear it from the source tonight. 

“Should I start guessing?”

“Please don’t,” Faith huffs a warm breath against his skin. “My girlfriend broke up with me.”

“Which number was this, again? Seven?” Billy wonders aloud, one hand skimming lightly down Faith’s back. 

“It’s your fault.”

And oh. That’s new. Usually Billy’s pretty damn good at managing all of Faith’s...affairs, and he can’t recall slipping in that particular self-appointed duty of his. 

“Wanna elaborate?”

“Not really,” Faith’s remarkably pliant and accepting, since normally ‘cuddling’ is not one of his approved activities, but Billy’s not looking too much into it. 

He’s pretty good at compartmentalizing his feelings and only letting things affect him on a surface level, and he’s been doing that where Faith is concerned for years now. 

“You should have let me scope things out first,” Billy’s mostly talking to himself, his fingers slipping into Faith’s hair and toying with the dark strands. “I could have figured out if two of them were gonna run into each other tonight.”

“Not _that_ ,” Faith pulls back enough to glare up at him and Billy notices that one of his cheeks looks suspiciously red. He touches his fingertips to it and Faith hisses, pulling back. “Fuck, I should have gotten some ice.”

“So what is it, then? Mind-reading is, regrettably, not one of my abilities,” he grins and Faith glares at him. 

“These are the problem! Your fucking vampire fangs!” he pushes his thumb against one and Billy instantly pulls back. “You basically chewed up my neck, of course someone was gonna notice!”

“Oh,” Billy moves his arms around Faith again, secretly pleased when he allows it. Yes, he’s feeling a _little_ guilty, but it’s not as if he’s got any obligation to these girls and Faith, despite his name...well, faithfulness is certainly _not_ the first word that comes to mind when describing his view on relationships.

“I thought we were keeping this a secret,” Faith’s damn near pouting now and Billy tries not to snicker. 

“Sooooory, sorry!” Billy pushes their foreheads together, nudging his nose against Faith’s. “That’s totally my bad~.”

“Yeah, well…” Faith’s words trail off into incoherent mumbles against Billy’s skin. “I mean, she was kinda too up in my business anyway. So ‘s fine. I guess.”

“I’ll be careful,” Billy promises. “I’ll only bite you in places nobody else can see,” he knows that’s bold, that he’s basically calling Faith out on not sharing anyone else’s bed, but at this point he’s _fairly_ sure that’s the case. 

Faith’s lack of a reply tells him all he needs to know, and he teasingly nips at the other man’s shoulder, getting a heavy sigh in return. 

There’s just silence after that, so still that all Billy can hear is their breathing—slowly, unconsciously syncing up with each other. 

They’ve never done this before. The fooling around has been going on for a while, though Billy can’t even pinpoint the exact time that started, but Faith has always kept his distance and Billy had never expected anything more. 

He doesn’t even think Faith’s especially broken up about this particular girlfriend, but maybe it’s just...everything catching up with him, or maybe he does this more than Billy could have ever suspected but had always been alone for it in the past. 

Alone. What a terrible thought. 

“Hey. Do you want me to stay?” he barely whispers the words, but they’re so close and it’s so silent that he knows Faith hears him. 

And this is a risk he normally doesn’t take, because doing anything without scoping out all possible options and knowing with complete certainty which one will be chosen? Yeah. That’s scary. 

He’s not used to feeling vulnerable, since putting up a front is part of his natural state after all this time—but here in the dark with nothing between them but skin, even _he’s_ not good enough to pretend that he’s not affected. 

Whatever his feelings for Faith are—and that’s certainly not something he’s ready to discuss—he cares about this man to the point that he’s been willing to spend literal _years_ of effort on him without (always) expecting anything in return.

Maybe that wouldn’t mean much to some people, but it’s pretty significant in his own mind. 

“You should go,” is what Faith finally says, and Billy tries to cover up the way he flinches at the words. “I mean, you _should_ go, but…”

“But what?” he prompts, bumping their noses together again. 

“Billy…”

“Come on, Mr. DJ,” Billy grins. “Where are those smooth lines that make you so irresistible?” 

“Ugh,” Faith replies, which only makes Billy laugh harder. “Seriously, I shouldn’t have to use those lines on _you._ ”

“No, but maybe I want you to,” Billy replies, and that’s probably _way_ too much, but Faith doesn’t shy away. 

“Billy. Stay,” his voice is deep and sultry and Billy mostly attempts to hide under the pillow since he’s _sure_ even the darkness can’t hide his blush now. 

“Okay!” he pops back out once he feels slightly more composed. “Anything for you, bestie ♡.”

“Seriously,” Faith grumbles, pulling him closer so they’re wrapped up in each other again. “Tomorrow’s a day off, right? So Ochibi-chan probably won’t get up early. You don’t have to, like, sneak out or anything.”

“Nice!” Billy decides at this point that a suitable distraction from the sudden heaviness in the air is to thoroughly mess up Faith’s hair. 

“Hey!” Faith manages to grab his wrists and trap his hands between them, both laughing now as they settle down again. “I feel better. I think.”

“That was the goal,” Billy tries to stifle a yawn against his shoulder, but apparently a few hours of sleep hadn’t been enough to make up for a night without. 

Faith’s eyes are closed now and Billy wonders if he’s just passed out without warning, but when his phone buzzes he quickly turns to silence it, a tiny grimace crossing his features as he looks at the screen. 

“Trouble?”

“I’m going to need your particular set of skills tomorrow,” Faith turns his phone face down, flipping the volume off. 

“Ah. Mr. Popular DJ is getting date offers again~,” Billy hums, though his half-asleep mind is already running through scenarios. It’s certainly _not_ a date offer in his case, but if Faith is willingly coming to him to hang out for an entire day--even if it’s just to avoid some girls--that’s already some sort of a victory. 

He thinks. 

“So I can leave it to you?” Faith rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. 

“Yep! I’ll plan us a fuuuuull day, bestie ♡,” he vows, getting a tiny half-smile in response. 

Faith just kind of mumbles something incoherent, much too close to sleep this time to reply, and Billy stares down at him for a good few minutes until he’s quite sure Faith’s _actually_ asleep before leaning down and kissing his forehead. 

“Good night,” he murmurs, getting himself comfortable and snuggling as close as he can. 

He wonders absently if Faith will ever figure out that the fact he consistently would rather hang out with Billy instead of any one of his vast collection of girlfriends might actually _mean_ something, but that’s a conclusion he’ll have to reach on his own. 

For now, it’s not like this arrangement is _bad_ , and while it’s unsustainable in the long term...well, he’ll worry about that when the time comes. 

All the scenarios have already been catalogued and stored in his mental database, after all. 

And yes, there’s definitely a _preferred_ ending to this lengthy tale of theirs, but if they start to head down one of the other routes, he’s prepared for it. 

...He thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Song title is from Sweet Little Lies by bülow. The full lyrics for that part are:
> 
> I love the picture in my head, but I know that it's not real  
> I live a picture in my head, 'cause I like how it makes me feel.
> 
> Also yes hello I've fallen hard into Helios and these two grabbed me right away (for more content and a bit of self-promotion, I did translate a story with them in it so you can find that [here!](https://fleetingmelody.dreamwidth.org/5773.html#cutid1).) Otherwise if you'd like to scream with me about these boys on [twitter](https://twitter.com/EndlessRondo), please feel free, and do leave a comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
